


This is Your Story

by Cygna_hime



Series: Making (Textual) Amends [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Apologies, Canonical Character Death, Eraqus Redemption, Gen, KH3-Defiant, Kingdom Hearts III Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cygna_hime/pseuds/Cygna_hime
Summary: Eraqus has one thing he can do, at the end. It won't make up for what he's done, but it's the most he can give to his children.
Relationships: Aqua & Terra & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Eraqus & Xehanort (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Making (Textual) Amends [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606810
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	This is Your Story

“There’s more to light than meets the eye. As I told you.” There was something inside of Terra, something part of him remembered clinging to at the worst of times. It had been there to shelter him, and now it was trying to get out. He let it.

Eraqus tugged himself free of his son’s heart with exquisite care. On this day, in this place, it was easy to build himself his old shape, at least to the eye. He would ask this of Terra, one last time.

Xehanort’s eyes widened. Had he not known, or had he forgotten? No heart need perish while there was love in which to dwell. “You sly fox…”

“Now hand over the χ-blade, Xehanort,” Eraqus spoke with Terra’s lips. “This game of yours has gone on long enough. This is checkmate.”

“No…I can still do…what must be done.”

Eraqus looked at his onetime friend. He was so old, now. They were both so old, so set in their ways. But Eraqus, at least, understood at last that he must change. Xehanort was always the same: it had been a comfort once, but now it was a weight. There was a time when their only conflict had been on the game board, but he could see after being willfully blind for so long that Xehanort had never grown out of it, only come to see people as more pieces to move about at his will. But they were _not_ pieces: they were real, with lives and wills of their own.

“It is over,” he said again. “Do you think you can make a better world from the blood of children?”

“Some sacrifices –”

“No, Xehanort. You are wrong, and always have been wrong.” Eraqus turned his gaze to rest on the children: his children, first, whom he had wronged so deeply, and then the rest, whom he had wronged less personally but no less truly. Ventus’s one golden eye glared at him, Aqua and Terra looked heartbroken, but the others were too focused on the space where Sora had only just been to pay Eraqus much mind. Their suffering was the consequence of his inaction. Over the years, he had come to understand this, to accept it. Now he would do what he could to make what poor amends were within his power.

“You can find him,” he said to Riku, successor of his successor; to Kairi, crownless princess; to King Mickey and Donald and Goofy and all the rest he only knew from echoes. “It will be a long journey to reach him where he has gone, but so long as your hearts are true, no barrier shall stand before you.”

Riku spared him a glance then. “Where did he go?”

“The undiscovered country, from which he brought you all back so recently.” From Riku’s gasp, the way Kairi began to sob, Eraqus knew he was understood. “Fear not. There are other ways back even from there, tangled and arduous though they be. Seek within your hearts, and you will find them.”

Behind him, Xehanort laughed, a dry little sound. “Unless I find one first.”

Eraqus turned back to him. “No, Xehanort. You will not return, by that path or any other. I will see to it.” Stepping forward, pulling himself free of Terra’s heart, he took Xehanort’s gloved hand in his and let the golden chains that were his power snake over them both, binding Xehanort to his will. It was barely an effort to bind and silence him after so much of his power had been spent in fighting Sora. Even as Eraqus was now, he was the stronger.

“Terra, Aqua, Ven – yes, and Vanitas, I am truly sorry. Ven, there are no words to apologize for what I put you through. I should have protected you.”

“Master!” Ven would have run to him, but Eraqus held up a hand to forestall him.

“I do not ask your forgiveness. Nor yours, Aqua, for placing such a heavy burden on you. Not that you were too weak for it, but that it was mine to bear.”

Aqua nodded, wordless, but he could see the tears dripping down her cheeks.

He looked last to Terra, whom he knew so well now. “Terra, my son.” Terra was shaking with silent sobs, and Eraqus yearned to hold him and wipe those tears away. “I am so, so proud of you.”

“ _Father!_ ” Terra was weeping. They were all weeping, clinging to each other. That was good. He had not meant to drive them apart, but he had done so nonetheless. Seeing them together again lifted a fraction of the guilt from his heart. He did not deserve their forgiveness, but to know that he still had their love was a blessing he did not deserve.

“I love you all, and I am sorry for the grief I caused you. Take care of one another.

“This is your world now.”

There was a skill all Keyblade Masters could learn, some sooner and some later. It needed no blade, no armor, no body, only an effort of will. With his fading strength, Eraqus put forth that effort and opened the door to the black desert, the final door that waited in every heart. He let himself seep into Xehanort, binding them together for time beyond time. If he spent eternity keeping Xehanort in that far land, it would be no more than his duty. And as the door swung open, he dragged them both through and shut it behind them.

The χ-blade clattered to the ground.

**Author's Note:**

> It's my fanfic and I'll put Discworld references in it if I want to.
> 
> I could probably write an entire post-KH3 epic AU where Eraqus lives and has to actually face what he's done and take the long road to redemption, but I'm (probably) not going to, so this will have to do.


End file.
